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The Game of Minds and Pieces

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                                                                                                       –Neel Jadhav(IXth B, Abhinav Vidyalay)

What comes to your mind when you think about chess? People moving pieces from one square to the other? People staring aimlessly at the board? 

The chess we play today is a successor of the old game chaturanga played in India. The 16th century saw the frequent evolutions of this game. In 1749CE Francios-Andre Philidor wrote a book titled Analyse du jeu des échecs, in which he covered new opening ideas and a defense that exists till today! The Philidor defense was used famously in pawn and rook endgames. He also wrote a quote” The pawns are the soul of chess” in this book. Chess became popular in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Famous grandmasters Garry Kasparov(Russia), Anatoly Karpov(Russia),  Vishwanathan Anand(India), Bobby Fischer(America), Jose Capablanca(Cuban),Mikhail Tal (Soviet Lativian ) were in this legendary era .                                                                

Garry Kasparov

On this legendary note let me tell you how to play chess! Every chess player starts with 16 pieces each, one playing as white and the other as black. The board has 64 squares, of which 32 squares are white and 32 are black. There is a King, a Queen, two knights, two bishops, two rooks, and eight pawns. Any pawn can move ahead 2 squares on its first turn but can only move 1 square forward after its first turn. The pawn can capture a piece only diagonally. The knight moves and captures in an L shape, a bishop diagonally and a rook horizontally as well as vertically. The queen on the other hand is special and the most powerful piece on the chessboard, being able to move and capture diagonally as well as vertically and horizontally. The king can move and capture in any direction up to 1 square per turn. Special rule (en passant) - when a pawn is adjacent to a pawn playing its first turn of 2 squares(note: not of 1 square move), it can go past the pawn on the square behind the turn playing pawn(capturing it and removing it off the board). En passant is available ONLY on the first turn since the pawn played. Castle- this rule allows the king and rook to move 2 places towards each other, only when either the king or the rook hasn’t left their position, with the exception being the castle on the queenside in which the rook moves 3 squares towards the king. Even the squares have a name! The names of the squares are determined by their row and column. The columns are named from a to h and the rows from 1 to 8. For example – the square where the e column and row number 4 meet is called e4, similarly the square wherein the d column and the 5th-row meet is called d5. These squares are accompanied by piece names. For example- knight to e4 is written as Ne4. The piece names when writing moves are N for knight, R for rook, B for bishop, Q for the queen, K for the king, and the unfortunate pawn doesn’t have a name to denote it which makes pawns sad. When capturing a piece it’s denoted as the piece x (multiplication sign) the square, for example – N x e4.

En passant:- You can watch this video for better understanding (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c_KRIH0wnhE) 

 Chess Pieces:- 

King                 Queen         Bishop          Knight          Rook            Pawn                                                                                                                              

(All the images of moves and openings are present at the end of the article)

Now I will mention some good openings for your starting game to impress your friends, or maybe parents or relatives or ... ahhh leave it!

1st – e4 e5, Nf3 Nc6, Bc4 Bc5 This is a standard opening where white aims to develop fast and play aggressively( Italian opening)

2nd – d4 Nf6, c4 e6, Nc3 Bb4  This is an opening where black strives to create a tough defense and completes the development of pieces early( Nimzo - Indian defense)

Go try these openings out, tell me what they say and you dare don’t defeat me! Please....... 

Movements of pieces




  Italian opening:- 

(Italian opening(For white))Video for better understanding of Italian opening. 


 Nimzo – Indian defense

(Nimzo Indian defense(For black))
Watch this video for a better understanding of Nimzo Indian defense. 

Credits- 

Movement of pieces 


THANK YOU FOR READING!!

                                                                                                  Edited by - Hemal D, Pratham M ,Vedant C & Kenisha S.


Location: Abhinav Vidyalay
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